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Dull Place or Green Idyll: Local Identity and Migration Intentions of Small City Youth
Author(s) -
Gunko Maria,
Medvedev Andrey
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.766
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1467-9663
pISSN - 0040-747X
DOI - 10.1111/tesg.12336
Subject(s) - opposition (politics) , denial , identity (music) , population , sociology , context (archaeology) , social psychology , alienation , economic geography , demographic economics , psychology , geography , political science , demography , politics , economics , aesthetics , archaeology , psychoanalysis , law , philosophy
Nowadays small cities often lose population. In countries which are forerunners of the demographic transition, depopulation is mainly driven by out‐migration of youth. Through a case study of students from small Russian cities, this paper explores the nature of the association between local identity (LI) and migration intentions. The study suggests that young people with a stronger LI are on average more prone to return to their native cities after graduation. This ‘traditional’ relationship may be related to the difficulties in maintaining strong ties to a place of personal significance when not residing there in the Russian context. However, overall, youth tend towards a negative association with their cities and LI is formed as an opposition: the denial of place validity. Therefore, both way associations are possible. While a strong LI may influence the intention to migrate, it may also develop as an adaptation mechanism for those forced to return.